"[7] After the early death of his father, Wythe probably attended grammar school in Williamsburg before beginning legal training in the office of his uncle, Stephen Dewey, in Prince George County.

"[10] In October 1748, family connections (Benjamin Waller was related to Zachary Lewis) probably helped Wythe secure his first government job as clerk to two powerful committees of the House of Burgesses, Privileges and Elections and Propositions and Grievances.

[19] Although known for his modesty and quiet dignity, Wythe eventually gained a radical reputation for his opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 and later attempts by the British government to regulate the overseas colony.

[21] In the summer of 1766, three events occurred that profoundly influenced Wythe, Jefferson, and several other Virginians who became Founding Fathers and insisted upon the separation of powers between three branches of the new government.

Instead of destroying redeemed paper currency after the French and Indian War, Robinson lent it to his political supporters (fellow southern Virginia planters).

Keeping the money in circulation helped these allies pay their debts but also tended to devalue the currency and defy the redemption laws the legislature had passed.

Indicted for murder, Chiswell was brought under armed guard to Williamsburg for trial in the next session of the General Court (which included many men from distant counties who also served as Burgesses and was thus usually held at the same time).

Before the group reached the Williamsburg jail, three judges (John Blair, Presley Thornton, and Byrd) stopped them on the street and allowed Chiswell to post bail until September, since the next court session began in October.

Jefferson, decades later in his Kentucky Resolution, echoed the anonymous 'Virginia Gazette' writer of September 12, 1766, who stated, "Distrust, the parent of security, is a political virtue of unspeakable utility.

"[29] The secrecy may have related to continuing unrest in Massachusetts against the Townshend Acts or the administrative interregnum between Fauquier's death in March and Botetourt's arrival in October.

The delegates agreed to convene militia, and the prospect of armed resistance caused Dunmore to try to remove gunpowder stores from Williamsburg to Royal Navy ships stationed offshore.

[37] When petitions and other attempts failed to resolve the crisis by the following summer while Dunmore's raiders harassed Virginia settlements from its waterways, Wythe moved and then voted in favor of the resolution for independence that Jefferson had drafted upon his return.

In January 1781, Benedict Arnold led 1,600 American Legion troops, which forced Jefferson to flee Richmond and burned the fledgling state capital, destroying many colonial records.

[45] Finally, four boatloads of neighbors attacked St. George at his house on Hog Island on September 21, 1781, forcing him to flee to Chesterville, then to New York, and ultimately to England.

[46] During the Yorktown campaign which led to General Charles Cornwallis' surrender, American and French troops camped at Williamsburg, and Count Rochambeau occupied the George Wythe house.

[49][50] Despite his late arrival, Wythe served on a committee with George Mason, which jointly designed the Seal of Virginia, inscribed with the motto Sic Semper Tyrannis, which remains in use today.

Fellow delegate William Pierce considered Wythe "one of the most learned legal Characters of the present age" and known for his "exemplary life," but "no great politician" because he had "too favorable opinion of Men.

Especially after Elizabeth died in 1787, some private pupils boarded at Wythe's home and received daily instruction in classical languages, political philosophy, and law.

The college suspended classes during the later days of the Revolutionary War, after which Wythe taught in Williamsburg and performed his duties as judge (mostly in Richmond as the new capital) until the 1788–1789 term.

The oath Wythe drafted for its admiralty judges indicates his judicial philosophy, "You shall swear that ... you will do equal right to all manner of people, great and small, high and low, rich and poor, according to equity and good conscience, and the laws and usages of Virginia, without respect to persons.

... And, finally, in all things belonging to your said office, during your continuance therein you shall faithfully, justly and truly, according to the best of your skill and judgment, do equal and impartial justice, without fraud, favor or affection, or partiality.

[69][70] Wythe particularly despised lawyers who protracted litigation at great cost to the parties, though to their benefit, and even in his last days, he regretted the burden delays placed upon those seeking justice from his court.

[73] In the 1782 Commonwealth v. Caton[74] opinion, Wythe upheld judicial review of legislative actions, in what became a predecessor to Justice Marshall's decision in Marbury v. Madison.

[78] One of Wythe's most famous decisions (unpopular at the time), Page v. Pendleton, upheld the authority of the 1783 federal peace treaty with Great Britain, which required debts to British merchants be paid under the contract terms.

Pendleton died in 1803, just before he could deliver an opinion attempting to reverse Wythe in Turpin v. Lockett, which dealt with selling the disestablished church's glebe lands, nominally at least to support the poor.

[84] Six ships carrying between 500 and 1,000 black Catholic refugees, some free and wealthy and others enslaved, arrived in Baltimore in July 1791 and/or June 1793 after unsuccessful stops in Charleston, South Carolina and Norfolk, Virginia.

Also, in the legislative session that began in the spring of 1806, the year of Wythe's death, a law was passed requiring formerly enslaved people to leave the state within 12 months.

Philip D. Morgan notes that there had been no documented gossip about Wythe and Broadnax at the time, unlike the case of Jefferson and Hemings, covered by newspapers and in individuals' letters and diaries.

Marshall and John Warden represented the enslaved people seeking their freedom, and Pleasants as the executor of his father's will, as they jointly sued the siblings who failed to obey the testamentary instruction.

However, that conviction was overruled on appeal based on a technicality in the forgery law that Wythe and Jefferson had drafted years earlier (recognizing the crime only against individual victims, not against corporations such as the bank).